# Highlighting uses DefaultEncoder, leading to incorrect HTML escaping
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlighting-uses-defaultencoder-leading-to-incorrect-html-escaping/3835
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [January 28, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlighting-uses-defaultencoder-leading-to-incorrect-html-escaping/3835 "2011-01-28T14:47:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Serge\_Nekoval](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Serge_Nekoval)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlighting-uses-defaultencoder-leading-to-incorrect-html-escaping/3835/1 "2011-01-28T14:47:15Z")
I noticed that HighlightPhase.java hardcodes the use of
DefaultEncoder, which does not escape the text before adding highlight
tags.
I know that Lucene supports HTML encoding, so is there a chance to
support it in ElasticSearch?
The problem is critical for highlighting plain-text fields. If you
escape a field after highlighting (on client), highlight tags will be
escaped as well. Note that all user-provided content HAS to be escaped
if you display it inside HTML page.
Am I the only one experiencing this problem?
---
### Author:  [@Cory](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Cory)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlighting-uses-defaultencoder-leading-to-incorrect-html-escaping/3835/2 "2011-02-24T23:55:03Z")
This is a problem for me also. Did you find a workaround?
-Cory
On Jan 28, 7:47 am, Serge Nekoval [neko...@gmail.com](mailto:neko...@gmail.com) wrote:
> I noticed that HighlightPhase.java hardcodes the use ofDefaultEncoder, which does not escape the text before adding highlight
> tags.
> I know that Lucene supports HTML encoding, so is there a chance to
> support it in Elasticsearch?
>
> The problem is critical for highlighting plain-text fields. If you
> escape a field after highlighting (on client), highlight tags will be
> escaped as well. Note that all user-provided content HAS to be escaped
> if you display it inside HTML page.
>
> Am I the only one experiencing this problem?
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 4:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/highlighting-uses-defaultencoder-leading-to-incorrect-html-escaping/3835/3 "2017-07-06T04:11:31Z")